Hardware and screen cloth machine



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m mE Patented Sept. 1, 1942 HARDWARE AND SCREEN CLOTH MACHINE Noah S. Hatter, Waukegan, Ill., assignor to The American Steel and Wire Company of New Jersey, a corporation of New Jersey Original application October 13, 1938, Serial No.

234,853. Divided and this application November 22, 1940, Serial No. 366,758

18 Claims.

The present invention is a division of my copending application, Serial No. 234,853, filed October 13, 1938, for Hardware and screen cloth machines, and relates to machines for making wire into fabrics, and, more particularly, relates to looms, and to novel processes and instrumentalities inherent therein, for making hardware and screen cloth fabrics; more especially, fabrics of the type shown in United States Patent No. 2,024,796, issued to me on December 17, 1935.

As was pointed out in my previous patent, above identified, machines of the class to which the present invention pertains heretofore provided for the continuous feed of warp wires through heddles and for the interweaving of weft wires with the warp wires by feeding the weft on bobbins and shuttles back and. forth between alternate warp wires during the operation of the heddles to effect the warp shed.

In such machines of the prior art the weft wires were positioned in the bite of the warp shed by means of a beater frame carrying a reed through which, the warp' wires passed, that served to push the weft wires, which were *laid thereagainst, into proper position.

As is now well known, the weft wires in such a machine were introduced in the warp shed by means of a shuttle arrangement carried by the beater frame in close proximity to the reed thereof. The weft Wire supply was spooled on a bobbin which was arranged to be transferred back and forth to the opposite ends of the beater frame each time the heddles shifted to change the warp shed. Before the return of the bobbin, during the next cycle of operation, a retractable finger was disposed in the path of the wire adjacent the selvage of the fabric being formed which served to retain the wire at this point, and upon the return movement of the bobbin, permitted the wire being paid therefrom, to be laid in parallelism with the preceding weft wire, and joined to the latter by ahairpin curve at the selvage. This operation was carried on to lay the weft wire in endless serpentineform back and forth between the warp wires until the weft wire supply on the bobbin was exhausted.

It then became necessary for a full bobbin to be substituted for the exhausted bobbin, and this, in turn, required that the machine be shut down and that the end of the new supply be spliced or welded to the end of the weft wire of the old supply. This operation, in addition to causing an unsightly defect at the joint of the weft wires in the fabric, was particularly undesirable-in view of the number .of times it had to be don during any substantial operating period of the machines. The frequency with which bobbins had to be replaced was directly proportional to the size of the fabric being made; the larger the fabric mesh, the heavier the component wires thereof, and a corresponding diminution of the linear length of the weft wire supply that could be accommodated on an ordinary bobbin. Machines made of larger and heavier construction so as to admit of the use of larger bobbins, proved to be impracticable because they were slow, cumbersome, and expensive.

As was also mentioned in my patent, above identified, the limitations imposed upon the amount of weft wire that could be supplied by the bobbin and shuttle method of feed could not be circumvented until the source of supply was di'sassociated from moving parts of the machine, and placed in stationary relation to the moving parts, whereby much larger supplies could be accommodated, and replenished from time to time, without requiring that the Operation of the machine be interrupted.

Such an arrangement for feeding weft wire would offer the same conveniences in continuity of operation and perfection of finished fabric as are now derived from the method -of feeding Warp wires to such looms. Even more desirable does such an arrangement become in view of the fact that it would tend to eliminate the bobbin and shuttle arrangement, which has hitherto been the seat of many structural elements and mechanical movements. Bobbin and shuttle mechanisms, though having been in use on looms for time immemorial, bespeak their antiquity by the slow, relatively inefiicient and costly manner in which they operate, and by their initial expense which their special, highly complex, structure entails.

Fabrics made by the bobbin and shuttle method were often imperfect, not only because of the prevalence of weft wire joints appearing at random throughout the weave of the fabric, but because the looms on which they were made were frequently incapable of manufacturing a fabric of uniform mesh having the wires aranism without employing bobbins and shuttles for this purpose.

It is still another object to provide a loom having means for receiving, holding and delivering weft wires into accurate association with warp wires, and for retaining the weft wires in proper position until they are locked permanently in the fabric.

It is a further object to provide a loom having means for introducing weft wires from an endless source of supply and for cutting and arranging each weft wire in proper relation to the warp wires and fabric to stop or even hesitate. There-. after the fabric is passed on to a take-up or reel of special design, as will be more fully described wires so that each is separate and distinct from [the others in the finished fabric.

It is a further object to provide a loom for making wire fabric of the class described with welded selvagesthereon.

It is a further object to provide a loom that is adapted to supply weft wires from an endless supply; for cutting the wire from the supply into exact predetermined leng h, and for automatitime causing the longitudinal feed of'the' warp hereinafter.

- The refinements of construction and detail of.

operation characterizing the present invention,

though not touched upon in the foregoing general outline, will be clearly understood from the following description when read in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which:

Figure l is a top plan view of a machine or loom embodying one form of my invention showing the entire layout except the fabric take-up.

Figure 2 is a side elevational view thereof. Figure 3 is a sectional elevational view taken along line III-III of Figure 1.

cally forming the ends of such cutv wires into a desired salvage configuration.

It is a further object to provide a machine of greatly simplified construction which will manufacture fabrics of this type efllciently, economically, and with. great uniformity of mesh,

-. an irregular line VV of Figure 2.

symmetry of design, and with fidelity of reproduction.

It is a further object to provide a machine for automatically assembling, cutting to size, forming and welding wires into hardware or screen cloth fabrics.

It is a further object to provide novel instrumentalities, methods of operation and methods of processing wires into fabric to achieve the desired ends hereinbefore and hereinafter set forth.

With the foregoing and ancillary objects in view, I propose to effect one embodiment of my inventionas follows:

In my prior Patents Nos. 2,056,851 and 2,091,229, dated October 6, 1936 and August 24, 1937, respectively, I have disclosed looms of the same general type to which the present invention pertains. However, the present invention has many features of improvement over the machines disclosed in my prior patents, as will be readily apparent' when the drawings appended hereto are considered in the light of the following specification.

As in the case of my prior patents, warp wires are fed throughsuitable guides and tensioning devices to heddles, comprising the usual pair of vertically reciprocable frames, each of which has means for engaging alternate warp wires respec-' tively. The heddles are actuated to provide the warp shed so that the weft wire may be interwoven with the warp wires to, form the completed proper association with the warp wires at the shed of the latter. As will hereinafter be fully described, weft wires positioned in this manner are then passed by-several means which successively act-upon the weft wire ends to trim them, bend them into, proper form, and weld them, in an automatic manner, without at any m-m of Figure 15. Figure 20 is a schematic plan view showing a Figure 6 is a cross-sectional elevational view taken along line VIVI of Figure 2, and looking in the direction of the arrows.

Figure 7 is a cross-sectional elevational view taken along an irregular line VII-VII of Figure 2. a

Figure 8 is an enlarged fragmentary, longi-' tudinal, sectional view showing several details of construction of the beater frame and associated actuating mechanisms.

Figure 9 is a fragmentary, sectional, elevational view taken along line IX-IX of Figure 8.

Figure 10 is a fragmentary, sectional, plan view XIL-XII in Figure 11 and looking in the direc-' tion of the arrows.

Figure 13 is an enlarged sectional view taken along line XIII-XIII in Figure ,11, looking in the a direction of the arrows.

Figure 14 is a detail top plan view of the righthand unit for shearing, bending and welding the weft wires'to form the selvage of the fabric.

Figure 15 is a side elevational view of the unit shown in Figure 14.

Figure 16 is a sectional view taken al ng line XVI-XVI in Figure 15.

Figure 17 is a sectional view taken along line XVII-XVII in Figure 15 with parts broken away.

Figure 18 is a sectional view taken along line xvnr-xvm of Figure 15.

Figure 19 is a sectional view'taken along 1 e fragmentary portion of the finished fabric, and

the various steps comprising its process of manufacture, including its formation and subsequent evolvement.

' Figure 21 is an enlarged fragmentary toppla'n view-,of the fabric take-up mechanism which-isshown in sectional elevation in Figure 3a.

Figure 22 is a side elevational view vice shown in Figure 21.

Figure 23 is a fragmentary front elevational of the de- 1 i 

